I haven’t really commented on this, so while I’m at it, I should point out that being able to see into different universes has a down side. I’ve seen Zed betray me, Deano blame me for something he knew I didn’t do, and much worse. Everyone has their weaknesses. At first I found this distressing. It makes you feel hurt and lonely, but after a while you get used to it. It is a very profound truth that you are on your own in this life and, much as other people might care for you at times, no one consistently looks after your interests. Why should they, when they often let themselves down? I learned to judge my friends not by what they got up to in the more remote universes, but on the overall pattern, on the percentages. In the vast majority of universes Zed is loyal and Deano is honest, so they are my friends. On this scale, a metaversal one, Tara stands out as the best of us all, by a long way.
Naturally, I became curious about how it was she held to her path so consistently, when the rest of us, to various degrees, had our bad moments. In part, it is just something she was born with, I suppose. Then having to catch up with us all, after the accident, to get to a stage where we stopped pitying her and forgot about her foot, that must have been really difficult, and it must have made her tough.
One morning, though, I overheard her talking about Buddhism with surprising enthusiasm, and then things fell into place. She believed that she should be trying to improve herself, all of humanity, and, indeed, all of creation. She believed life for people could be made better and that how she behaved actually made a difference.
It was a revelation; it was humbling. Up until this time of my life, I hadn’t ever stopped to think about what I believed in, and it came as a surprise to me that some people had not only thought about what they were going to do with their lives but were living them accordingly. In Tara’s case, she ascribed to some quite sophisticated ideas, which amounted to striving to be a better person by making a positive contribution to the world.
This really set me thinking, because with my ability, perhaps the world could be made a better place. Up to this time, it suddenly dawned on me with a flush of shame, I had used my discovery entirely for myself. But I could just as easily use it for everyone.
Next time Deano found himself struggling in French and the butt of Mr Brown’s dry sarcasm, I moved, to an admittedly rare universe where he had actually done his homework and came out of the interrogation admirably and with praise. Deano basked; I basked.
Then I really tried to do some good, some serious good. My dad works as a fitter at the Mater Hospital. In the hope of being able to save lives, I went to the Accident and Emergency Department there. That plan turned out to be very boring and a little sad. The problem was that I couldn’t make much of a difference by the time someone came in. Seeing the lack of options for the chronically sick people was depressing. Thousands of universes and they were suffering in them all. Where I was needed was at the scene of accidents, where the options for choosing a new universe were still available. It made me think that I should become a firefighter or an ambulance driver.
If you think about it carefully, what I was trying to do doesn’t make a great deal of sense. Just because I could move to a universe where someone survived an accident didn’t save them in the universe I’d left behind, or all the other ones like it. But back then I wasn’t so clear of what my ability involved. In any case, I’m still rather proud of the moment. It was the first time I began to think of others and not just myself.
Not that this flash of moral behaviour led me to reappraise the whole moving thing. It was second nature to me by then. Even though I was filled with a sensation that something very fearsome and menacing was growing in power, I couldn’t stop moving. Could anyone give up an ability like that?
***
Trying to be a good person didn’t mean I made quick progress with Tara. It took nearly a year from my change in attitude before she would let me into her life. The breakthrough came about halfway through fifth year, during one lunch break when I came and sat beside her.
‘I know how to improve the karma of the people around me.’
Tara was interested in that, but sceptical. ‘How?’
‘Well, you have to be willing to believe something pretty strange.’
‘Go on.’
‘Imagine, for a moment, that you can swap into nearby universes.’
‘Nearby universes?’
‘Yeah. Exactly like this one, but with small differences. This eraser is blue instead of red. Sheila walks through that door now, instead of later.’
‘Right. So?’
‘So,’ I paused, ‘you keep moving all the time, to a better universe. Each time someone nearby makes a choice, you can move to the universe where they were kind, or considerate, or helpful.’ She was listening carefully, for the first time ever we were having a proper conversation. ‘It might take a million moves, but eventually you would be in a universe where people had only ever done good deeds. Then you would be close to nirvana, right? Not just for yourself, but for everyone?’
‘Maybe. Although I think nirvana is a place you reach after you have left all cares behind. It’s not really a question of making the right choices within this world.’
‘But it would be close right? It would be like living in a world full of true Buddhists.’ I could see Tara was taking me seriously. She studied the eraser in my hand and then wondered aloud, ‘A world where all the people had only ever done positive actions? It would still be part of samsara, the cycle of life and death. But more people would be at a level that would allow them to escape. That would be good.’
We sat for a moment, in shared contemplation. We were talking about something important, and I really liked the feeling. Then she looked up with a frown. ‘When I move universes, what happens to the one I leave behind, the one where they made a bad choice?’
Ahh, sharp. Way ahead of me, who could actually move. ‘They are still there. It’s just that you are no longer experiencing them.’
‘Well then, you’ve not really solved anything. In fact, a true Buddhist would probably stay in the darker world and learn how to let go of suffering rather than escape to a happy Teletubby land.’
For a moment my gaze met her shining grey eyes and I felt lightning crawl around the inside of my head. This was a whole new perspective on my life and my ability.
‘I need to talk about this,’ I stated earnestly. ‘I have to think about these things, they are important.’ With one sentence she had made me reconsider the entire direction of my life. What was I going to do with my skill? She began to laugh, that I was taking what to her must have seemed idle conversation so seriously, but then she looked at my face and, after a moment’s hesitation, she gave a small nod.
‘We can talk about it in Café Paradiso after school, if you like.’
5
A Cruel Valentine
That Wednesday, after P.E., I hurried down to Café Paradiso, to find Tara waiting for me, a glass of orange juice on the table in front of her. She smiled when she saw me come in. The café was already filling up with kids from our fifth and sixth years. Meeting Tara here wasn’t a big deal, like a date. This is where a lot of us hung out after school. But still, here she was, waiting for me. And she looked pleased that I’d arrived.
‘What are you reading?’ I asked her, throwing down my bag. Tara had put her book face down on the table and I picked it up. The Handmaid’s Tale. The spine was broken in several places and I ran my finger over the ridges.
‘You know there are two types of people in this world,’ I spoke solemnly as I settled into an uncomfortable metal chair, ‘those who treat their books well and the other kind, the brutal kind. You can tell a lot about someone by how they treat their books.’
‘Yeah? Show me one of yours.’
I didn’t usually bring books in to school, so I moved in order to get one. Curiously, the book that I was most likely to bring with me was The Catcher in the Rye. This said more about the fact that I wanted to make a good impression
than my true reading interests, which were usually biographies about footballers or science fiction. Taking it from me, Tara was genuinely amazed at how unmarked it was.
‘Have you started reading this? It’s like new.’
‘Finished it.’ Which was true in this universe. I’d rather liked it. It made me wish I had a little sister.
‘No way.’ She laughed again. ‘You are right, you can tell a lot about someone by their books. In your case, beneath your disguise as a troubled hooligan, you are really a repressed nerdy type.’
Her grey eyes were sparkling and I was smiling happily back at her.
‘You know, I really can move universes.’ It just came right out. I hadn’t planned on telling her, but then again, I was getting lonely, being able to move but not sharing it with anyone. I had been thinking of a way I could explain it to Zed and I guess that led me to just blurt it out, like a fool.
Tara’s expression instantly changed to one of mistrust, perhaps anticipating an attempt by me to mock her. She looked down and seemed to need to adjust the straps on her leg.
‘I’m not making it up. I can prove it.’
‘Really?’ She frowned.
‘Easily. Write down a number between one and twenty.’
She got out a pen and was about to write in the back of her book.
‘Wait, use this.’ I gave her my school rough book. I couldn’t bear to see her mark a real book.
Before Tara put away The Handmaid’s Tale, she folded down the corner of a page to mark her place. My involuntary wince caused the hint of a smile to weaken the sternness of her expression.
‘Look.’ I produced a bookmark, put it in the right place and unfolded the page corner. ‘These were invented for a reason.’
‘Thanks.’ Her pen was poised over the page of my rough book. ‘All right, turn away.’
I gave her a moment to write down her number.
‘Seventeen,’ I announced. ‘Write down another.’
Her eyebrows rose a little.
‘Four. Write down another.’
This time she looked over her shoulder, checking if there was a reflection or some other means by which I could see the number. Before setting down the next one, she hunched up over the book, shielding it with her hand and a cascade of red hair.
‘Twelve.’
There was a curious interplay of emotions on her face. Doubt was giving way to puzzlement and, thankfully, amazement. She was not rejecting me but was growing curious, entering into my world. We filled a page of the book with numbers, before I stopped the game. I was tired of moving now and a pain was growing in my mind that was manageable until I came at it the wrong way, when it stabbed me in the side of my head.
‘How are you doing that?’ she whispered, leaning forward in complicity.
‘I can see hundreds, thousands even, of nearby universes. I’ve been moving to the ones where I guessed right.’
‘So all those philosophical questions of yours, they were not hypothetical?’
‘No.’
‘You could really find a universe where people have only ever been kind to each other?’
‘Well, I could keep moving in that direction. I’m not sure if I’d ever reach it though.’
‘Why don’t you do it?’
‘I might. But I kinda like it around here.’
***
It was such a relief to have someone to confide in, that for the next few days I was walking around with bright enthusiasm for life. Hail and cold rain may have been assailing the windows of our classrooms, but summer had come to my heart. Yet this glorious happiness lasted no more than two weeks, ending with the arrival of Valentine’s Day.
The previous year I had moved to a universe where I had, anonymously, sent everyone in my class a Valentine’s Day card. I thought it would cheer everyone up. Hopefully it did. But this year to do the same would have felt disloyal to Tara. We were getting on well now, meeting once a week after school. Our growing intimacy had not escaped the notice of Zed and Deano, but they didn’t slag me about it. Perhaps they had recognised how serious I was about her; that Tara was not a subject for teasing. Perhaps also we were all getting a bit older.
The first sign something was wrong was the way that Jocelyn Doonan walked past me in the corridor outside our class, face white with fury.
‘How could you?’ she hissed as she marched past.
Odd. Jocelyn and I got on fairly well.
On opening the door to our classroom, things got even stranger. The whole room went quiet. Tara rushed out past me, her gait awkward, face down. Two of her best friends hurried after her.
‘What’s up?’ I asked Debbie, but she just turned away. So did everyone else. They were all leaving the class, on account of the fact that I had come in. It was slightly frightening, like being in a zombie film or something, but I held my nerve and went over to my desk, giving Deano a rueful shake of my head, showing him that I thought the situation was crazy.
‘Not cool, Liam. Not cool.’ Deano stood up and joined those walking out of the classroom.
Just a few minutes had passed since I had entered the room. Only Zed was left, and even he was looking at the door, as if making up his mind to go.
‘What is it I’m supposed to have done, Zed?’ My heart was racing, as far as I knew nobody in our school had ever been given this treatment; it had to be serious.
‘Aww, man.’ Zed handed me a Valentine card. The envelope simply had ‘Tara’ written on it. Inside there was a card that looked like it had come from a gift shop, all shiny and colourful. On the outside was a cute looking cherub. The headline was ‘You are my angel!’ Inside it read ‘Awkward, Nightmarish, Grotesque, Elephantine, Lopsided!’ The accompanying cartoon was of a one-legged girl jumping across the card from left to right, with a voice in a bubble shouting ‘Hop off!’
Fire and rage seethed through me.
‘Who dared make this card? I’ll find them and kill them! How could they?’ It didn’t take much imagination to picture Tara opening the card, probably with some pleasure and excitement, only to be crushed by the message and the evidence that someone held a savage hatred towards her. Never since her accident, and probably never before then either, would anyone have taunted her in such a vicious and cruel manner.
Zed was studying me carefully. ‘Look at the handwriting.’
I did. It was a very good forgery; the lettering looked exactly like my own.
‘I see. It looks like mine, but I never sent it. Jaysus, Zed, how could I?’
‘I dunno, mate.’ With a loud sigh, Zed sat in Deano’s seat, which was next to mine at the back of the class. ‘But Jocelyn says she saw you put this in Tara’s desk early this morning, before anyone was in.’
‘No way. Why would she say that?’ Really, that was the question. Why on earth would Jocelyn make that up? I was totally bemused. With my head in my hands, eyes closed, I began to search the adjacent universes. Up until now, I had been upset, but not worried. If situations became crappy, and they didn’t get much more crappy than this, I could always use my ability and bail. Sod them all, if they thought so little of me. How easily they believed that I could do that to Tara.
Disconcertingly, though, there was no way around this catastrophe. As far as I could see, thousands of distant, dim universes away, there was the hated card. In many universes I was totally alone in the classroom, not even Zed was present. Ever since I had learned to move I had been able to escape difficult situations. Not this one. It was a terrible surprise and, at the same time, a little frightening, to have lost my control over the options available to me.
There was something wrong about the card itself. It was glittering black and evil in all adjacent universes, twisting them, drawing them around it, not letting me see any universe in which it did not exist. It was like the card itself was fighting me. Up until this moment, my fears about the consequences of moving had only been forebodings. Now, however, they were made tangible by this creepy card. What was even mo
re frightening was my sense that this was only the beginning of even worse troubles.
‘Zed, you have to believe me. Somehow I’ve been framed.’ My voice was surprisingly even and I kept the tears back.
‘Are you callin’ Jocelyn a liar? She doesn’t seem like the type.’
‘No. She’s not a liar.’
He sighed, a long heavy sigh. ‘Maybe you were there, but put another card in. Some jealous guy swapped it on you.’
Nice one, Zed, to offer me a way out.
‘Thanks, mate, but nope. I made her a card, but it’s still in my bag.’
‘Show me.’
Opening my bag, I got a sinking feeling. There was no card, not even when I had tipped everything out on to the desk.
‘Dude.’ Zed got up in disgust and left me alone in the classroom.
When, eventually, everyone had to come back in for registration, no one spoke to me; they hardly even exchanged a word with each other. There was a very conspicuous space in the middle of the class: Tara’s empty desk.
Enforced solitude gave me a lot of time to think. Firstly, I was bitter with my entire class. If they thought me capable of sending such a card, then I was better off without them. I’d always felt myself to be a little apart, what with being able to move, so this unjustified hostility now created a massive crevasse between us where there had previously just been a crack. I was an island, or better still, a planet, with the vast black silence of space between me and any other life or colour.
Secondly, I wanted vengeance on whoever had done this. They had hurt me and they had hurt the best person I knew, the one person whom I knew was trustworthy, the one person who knew my secret. For two weeks I’d been happy. I had felt that I was not alone. But of course I was. Everyone was. Me most of all.
***
That night I had an alarming dream.
***
I was a demon in the realms beneath the universe and I was hungry. My whole body ached with insatiable desires. My appetite was not for food but for emotion: for guilt, pride, vengeance, anger and fear. A thousand years passed: a thousand years of constant motion, searching through the darkness for the heady emotions of human existence. Perhaps it was millions of years. They seemed to pass all at once, yet existence was a constant agony of unfulfilled desire. At last, I felt my time had come. Somewhere, there was a fraying of the fabric that separated the demon realms and the human universe. A tear, a wound, and I could smell food beyond it. I sniffed, circled, worried at it, feeling it widen, deepen, feeling the pressure build up against it. Finally, it was wide enough and, with an explosion of dark matter, I was through. Gods in the heavens tremble! For I was trapped no longer and could feast until my belly burst or there was nothing more on this earth for me to devour.
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